Eyes Wide Open
by Faye Dartmouth
Summary: After a difficult hunt, Dean is forced to face one of his little brother’s secrets and gets a whole lot more than he bargained for.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Eyes Wide Open

Summary: After a difficult hunt, Dean is forced to face one of his little brother's secrets and gets a whole lot more than he bargained for.

A/N 1: I'm having a hard time prefacing this piece so as to appropriately preempt some of the ire I suspect I'll elicit. As simply as I can, I don't believe either boy is perfect. I don't believe either boy is the "victim" while the other is the "instigator." I believe that both boys are screwed up, messed up, emotionally damaged to the extent that they don't even know how to help each other. Just as so many fics post Sex and Violence are designed to show Sam the error of his ways, this fic is designed to open Dean's eyes up a bit to where Sam is coming from. If that's not your thing, my suggestion is not to read. My intent is not to demonize Dean and glorify Sam. My intent is to help Dean see where Sam's coming from. Just because I have focused on that does not mean that I think Sam is guilt-free in the entire ordeal.

A/N 2: Beta'ed by geminigrl11. A secondary look by sendintheclowns. And a reassuring once over by a certain lurker who has been so much fun to rant with. Also, this will be a two-shot only because I got too wordy for it to stay a one-shot. Part two will be posted in a day or so.

Disclaimer: Really, not mine.

* * *

_I didn't ask_

_They shouldn't have told me_

_At first I'd laugh, but now_

_It's sinking in fast_

_Whatever they've sold me_

_Well baby I don't want to take advice from fools_

_I'll just figure everything is cool_

_Until I hear it from you_

-from "Til I Hear it From You" by the Gin Blossoms

-o-

Dean didn't like this place.

The house itself was bland, a cookie cutter shape with generic tan siding on a street full of countless other houses with generic tan siding. This one had green shutters, though, and a red front door, which Dean figured was supposed to make it stand out. Instead, it just kind of made it look like a bad attempt at Christmas cheer.

"You're kidding me, right?" he asked, and he so did not care about the whine in his voice at this point.

Sam didn't even look at him, just furrowed his brow and flattened his lips as he ducked his head to look up at the house from under the Impala's front window.

It just seemed conspicuous, was all. The suburbs, where all the places looked so much alike and nothing unusual ever happened. People would notice stuff. Like _them_.

"Come on, we can stitch it up in the motel," Dean said.

At this, Sam glanced at him. "You told me we were doing this right," Sam said as a matter of fact. "That you didn't want me poking around down there."

Dean shifted uncomfortably, all too aware of the injury that had them in front of this house. It wasn't serious necessarily, at least not with treatment, but it was low and deep and well--a little closer to the family jewels than he cared to talk about. Even before hell, he would have been loathe to let Sam anywhere near that area.

On top of that, he didn't trust Sam anymore--not really. Not since the whole showdown with the siren. Sam could claim he didn't mean what he'd said all day long, but Dean knew what it meant. And hell, if Sam hadn't been _his_ responsibility, he might have given the kid what Sam thought he wanted and ditched him with Ruby.

But Sam was his responsibility and so they had to keep hunting together or Sam might end up a demon or dust or a dusted demon. Even so, staying together and hunting together was one thing. Trusting Sam was entirely another. Sam had used all of that up when he started taking walks by himself again, when he started talking to Ruby in the bathroom when he thought Dean wasn't listening, when he told Dean that he was weak and holding Sam back and then boo-hoo'ed Dean's torment.

So nope. Not trusting Sam.

Which was why he was sitting in the passenger's seat with a wad of gauze pressed firmly against the inside of his leg and why he'd been humming Metallica the last fifty miles.

"Yeah, I was thinking a clinic or something," Dean snapped. "A hospital, maybe. Not a less attractive version of Wisteria Lane." Although if there was a Eva Longoria look-alike in there, he might just change his tune.

Sam didn't show much expression, not that that was unusual. Not even a flicker of humor. Instead, Sam looked back at the house. "If we don't get you looked at, the blood loss could get bad," Sam said. "We're here and you need the help."

"But _where_ are we exactly? Who do we expect to find here?"

Face set, Sam just looked down the street for a second, looking jumpy, edgy. Then he looked at Dean again. "I don't suppose asking you to trust me will really do much good?"

Dean snorted.

Sam looked down, pushing open his car door. "Either you can walk yourself to the door, or we'll be out to get you with a wheelchair," he said. "Your choice."

The car door shut and Dean felt indignant.

Shifting, he glanced down at his leg, pulling away the gauze slightly. He was still in the ripped jeans, which were thoroughly soaked around the crotch. The bleeding had slowed, but it hadn't stopped, and pressing the gauze down again, he hissed in pain.

Beggars couldn't be choosers, apparently. And bleeding out from the crotch seemed like a crappy way to die.

Mumbling a curse, he pushed open his own door and ambled out behind his brother.

By the time he got to the porch, the door was opening. It was a woman, probably in her late thirties. Tired blonde hair and jeans and a t-shirt. She looked at Dean first, hobbling as he was, before turning confused eyes to Sam.

The confusion gave way to recognition and surprise. "Sam?"

Sam smile awkwardly. "We need your help."

She raised her eyebrows and looked toward Dean again. "And who exactly is _we_?"

Sam seemed to twitch a little, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "Dean. That's--Dean. My brother Dean."

Her eyes widened again, looking from Dean to Sam to Dean again. She looked like she wanted to say something, a lot of somethings, but instead she pursed her lips, clenched her jaw and opened the door all the way. "First bedroom on the right," she said. "I'll be there with my stuff in five minutes."

With that, she disappeared inside and Sam looked back at him. "You need a hand?"

Dean had a feeling he was going to need a whole lot more than that before they left here.

-o-

The house was equally as drab on the inside as it was on the outside. Sam led him through a nondescript living room with a handful of pathetic-looking pieces of furniture. There were some books on the coffee table, a few pictures on an end table, but nothing personal enough to get a sense of who the hell this woman was.

First door on the right, just like she'd said, and Sam steered him inside and to the twin sized bed. It didn't look like much--a bed, matching dresser, and a desk--and Dean was suddenly not sure what to do. Sitting would be nice, but he was still bleeding, and as impersonal as the place seemed, he wasn't so keen on bleeding on other people's things.

The shades on the window were pulled shut, but the room was bright anyway. There was a neutral print of some seaside view framed above the bed and a small collection of lotion bottles organized on the dresser. There were more books on the shelf above the desk--titles Dean didn't recognize, except a textbook or two of the medical variety which actually made him feel a little better.

A little, but not a lot. He scowled at his brother, who was standing with his hands in his pockets, looking at the carpet.

"This is your brilliant plan?" Dean accused.

Sam just shrugged. "It was the best I could think of."

"Who is she, anyway?" Dean whispered, trying to reposition the wad of gauze to stem the flow without feeling like he was going to fall over. "And how do you know her? And why exactly is she qualified to do this?"

"She's a doctor," Sam said. "I met her on a hunt."

There was a lot of that story missing, though, which wasn't much of a surprise. So little truth came out of his brother's mouth these days and what little that was true was never the whole story. "So, she--knows?"

Sam looked up at that, steady and detached. "Yeah," he said. "She knows."

How much, though, Dean wasn't exactly sure, but there was no time to ask as their doctor in residence came through the door.

Her hair was pulled back now, and she carried a bag that she promptly set on the dresser. "You should probably sit," she said. "And getting undressed will probably help."

Dean bristled. "Look, lady, it just needs a few stitches."

She looked at him, glancing down to where Dean was still putting pressure. "If those stitches need to be where I think they do, trust me, you'll want me to be able to see what I'm doing."

Dean reddened a little at that.

"I'll be in the living room," Sam said shortly.

Dean wasn't sure if he wanted his brother to stay or to leave. After all, he still didn't know this woman and if she had met Sam during their time apart, then he wasn't sure he could trust her at all. Sam said she knew, but what exactly did she know? Ruby looked normal enough from the outside, but that was a demon wearing a corpse who liked to sex up his little brother. What was this? Another one-night stand? Another demon in disguise?

But Sam was gone before Dean could decide to ask him to stay.

The woman was pulling items out of the bag--dressings and sutures and some vials of medicine, among other things.

Licking his lips, Dean forced a smile. "I don't suppose you mind me saying Christo, do you?"

She didn't flinch, but her face went pale and she stiffened, looking at him coldly. "Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?" she said.

Not the reaction he'd been expecting, and not exactly a good one. "Why would it be?"

"Look, I'm doing this for Sam," she said, resuming her organizing. "I owe him this much. But I don't owe you anything. So, if you'd like me to fix things up down there with no lingering side effects, I suggest you stop trying to be cute and let me get to work."

Dean wasn't cowed by a lot of things, but his groin hurt and he was tired and his jeans were stiff with drying blood. She wasn't a demon, it seemed, and Sam's word wasn't worth much these days, but desperate times called for desperate measures. "I'll need a minute to get my pants off."

She just rolled her eyes, turning to him, fully gloved now and pushing him to the bed. "And I can barely contain my excitement," she muttered. "You have thirty seconds or I cut them off myself."

She turned back to the dresser and Dean muttered a curse under his breath again as he fumbled with his belt. He was pulling at his jeans when suddenly the world got fuzzy and he felt himself tipping. It was sort of an odd sensation, light and airy and heavy and wrong all at once, and he heard her swear a second before steady hands were pushing him up and rolling him onto his back.

When his vision cleared, he realized he'd almost passed out and she was scowling down at him. "You really are his brother, aren't you?"

Dean's brow crinkled and he was vaguely aware that she was wielding scissors and making short work of his boxers. "And how do you figure?"

"Idiocy in the face of injury," she said. "Must be a family trait. I just hope you're not quite as suicidal as he is."

He'd just been insulted and mocked and now Sam was suicidal? Since when was Sam anything but a cold-hearted SOB?

But she was holding a needle now--a big one and she was moving in on areas where needles just did not belong.

"You are a doctor, right?" he asked, because suddenly that seemed very, very important.

She looked genuinely amused. "Plus or minus a few malpractice suits."

Dean opened his mouth to protest and she just grinned. "Don't worry, you won't feel a thing."

"That's kind of what I'm worried about," he muttered.

"Take it easy," she soothed. "Just a simple injection to numb the site and you can just relax. When you wake up, you'll be as good as new. Trust me."

He couldn't trust her more than he could trust Sam, but it wasn't like there was anything he could do about it now. Humming _Enter Sandman_, he tried not to think about the pressure down there or about more of Sam's secrets or about how close he'd come to giving Sam a sister.

-o-

It was a blur of action and feeling. Even with the painkiller, it still felt wrong and he lay ramrod straight through the entire ordeal. The woman--doctor?--didn't talk much, just muttered occasionally, things Dean couldn't hear (didn't want to hear). When he startled in surprise and pain a few times, though, her touch was surprisingly gentle and her smile oddly warm before she got back to the task at hand.

He felt spent when she was finished, even though he hadn't done any of the work. She offered him a mirror to see the results, which he sheepishly accepted.

Giving him some pills and a glass of water, which she watched him drink, she smiled at him. To the point, she told him where the bathroom was, granted him free range of anything in the fridge, and said what he needed was sleep.

He thought maybe a shower would be nice, a beer, too, all once he made sure that Dean Jr. was going to be just fine.

When he woke up, though, he realized just how right she'd been.

The haze cleared completely--the drugs, he supposed, could only last so long--and it came to him that he was hungry.

Cautiously, he looked down, trying to remember if he'd covered himself with that blanket before falling asleep or not. A little tentative, he peaked under it, glad to find that at least whoever had covered him up hadn't humiliated him even more by attempting to dress his bottom half.

In the light, he could see the wound for what it was: long and ugly and unpleasant. But the line of stitches was neat and clean, tight and as discreet as it could be.

Satisfied, he pushed himself up in the bed, wincing at the jolt of pain that washed through his body. Some more painkillers were going to be a must to make it through the day.

To that end, he squinted at the window, which was awash with sunlight. Even brighter than yesterday. Like it was morning.

Dean glanced at the digital clock on the bedside. 10:34. He'd just slept for nearly eighteen hours.

But hey, eighteen dream-free hours. Maybe he needed to try pain-induced sleep more often. He could do without the nightmares. The private room was kind of nice, too. That way when Sam snuck out, Dean didn't have to think about it.

The thought of his brother made Dean remember where he was. And more than that, who else was here. Sam, as always, and Sam's _friend_.

Last night, he hadn't had the chance to question or protest or probe. Now, he did. He was tired of being blindsided by his kid brother's secrets.

That was enough motivation to push past the pain to a standing position. His duffel was on the floor by the closet, but a pair of pants and boxers were laid out on the desk. He had to give the lady some credit. She'd tried to make this part as easy on him as she could while leaving him what little remained of his dignity that morning.

Bending, at the moment, made him a little nauseous, and getting dressed was a slow process. By the time that he was covered, he sort of wanted to just curl right back up and go back to bed.

But he couldn't. No matter where the wound was, he couldn't let another secret slip by. The smarter brother _was_ back and he was going to make Sam regret ever thinking otherwise.

Dean wasn't sure what hurt the most about it all. The fact that Sam confirmed every growing doubt Dean had had since coming back from hell or that Sam had been stupid enough to lie about it afterward. Saying that he hadn't meant it. Dean knew better; the siren knew how to amplify things, how to make its victims obsess and fixate, but it didn't create the emotion. Sam thought he was weak, stupid, whiny--under all that little brotherly facade of caring and sharing, Sam resented him and skanked around with Ruby instead.

_Weak and stupid, my ass_. Dean wasn't the one being led around the nose by a demonic bitch. It all came down to saving Sam or stopping him, and Dean was going to do that with or without Sam's help, little brother's pride and privacy be damned.

He'd tried being pissed. He'd tried punching. When Sam didn't respond to that, he'd tried a softer route. He'd tried listening. He'd tried encouraging. Hell, he'd even tried not talking about it. And where was it getting him? Nowhere. Sam didn't respect him enough to tell him much of anything, and the siren's venom was probably the best thing that had happened to Dean in months. At least this way, he knew where they stood. He had no reason to sit around and let Sam dupe him anymore. If Sam wanted to play with fire, Dean was just going to have to hide all the matches before his dumb-ass kid brother got himself torched alive.

Those thoughts fueled enough adrenaline in him to get him out the bedroom door and moving gingerly toward the kitchen.

He only made it to the living room before he saw Sam.

Sam was seated on the couch, hunched forward with a pen in his hand, focusing intently on a book splayed over the coffee table.

Sam saw him immediately, straightening and blinking. "Dean. Hi. You're up," he said, fast and his face flushed. He blinked again, rapidly and harder, like maybe he thought Dean was some kind of mirage. Then, Sam seemed to remember himself and hurried to his feet. He took a tentative step toward Dean but stopped short, arms falling limply to his sides with a sheepish grin. "You feeling okay?"

The words seemed well-intentioned enough, but Dean didn't really want to give Sam the benefit of the doubt. "I've got stitches where the sun don't shine," he groused. "How do you think I feel?"

Sam's smiled wavered and fell. "Yeah," he said. "You, um. Should heal fine, though."

As if that was supposed to make Dean feel better about it all. The stitches, this house, that woman--more of Sam's lies, more of Sam's hidden secrets. Dean had bared his soul to his little brother, and all Sam did was hide away one thing after another and it was taking more than a small toll on both of them. The hunt had been Dean's idea, a spirit in Nebraska--and Sam had acquiesced without any ado. Without any comment. Without much of anything. Half the time since the siren, it was like Sam was letting Dean win arguments, as if that changed anything.

All it did was piss Dean off and made them both sloppy.

Sam looked twitchy. He licked his lips and rubbed at the back of his head. "I. Uh. I'll let you eat," he said, motioning his head toward the kitchen. "I was just, uh. Reading."

As if Dean couldn't see that. Leave it to Sam to state the obvious and ignore the freakin' elephant in the room. This place was making Sam act weird--weirder than the normal weird of late. Sam was nervous and jumpy. He couldn't even finish a damn sentence. Not that Sam was overly talkative these days (hell, no, he saved that for being under the supernatural influence when it let him be a jackass) but this behavior was damn unnerving.

"I think I'll go lay down," Sam said. "But, you know, if you need something, I can--"

Dean didn't really have the stamina for this kind of stuff. He could only handle so much irritation, and since those stitches sure weren't going anywhere, he wasn't sure what he'd do to Sam. "I'm fine, Sam." Though, if Sam had really been concerned, he might try to _show _it. Sitting around reading while Dean's most precious cargo was on the line? And then going to bed as soon as Dean was awake? A bit of a low blow, even for this new Sam he seemed to be living with.

Sam flashed him a weak smile before brushing past him. Dean heard a door close down the hall and he was left alone in some stranger's living room and a rising list of questions of just what the hell they were doing here and what secrets Sam was trying to keep in the process

Which was exactly what this had to be--a secret. Coming to this house, knowing this woman--another one of Sam's one night stands? Another psychic maybe, someone to help him track demons? Or some other kind of supernatural evil personified for Sam to screw around with?

Whatever it was, if Sam thought he could drag Dean here and not talk about it, Sam was wrong.

Half-wrong anyway. There wasn't much point in talking to Sam. Dean was basically through with that. He still had his father's orders hanging over his head and he still had Cas's warning. _Save him or kill him. Stop him or we will_. He'd always counted on trusting Sam to be part of the winning arrangement, but if that ship was sailed, Dean would still live up to his responsibility. He had no intention of putting a bullet in his brother, not after all this, but he _would_ save Sam's sorry ass whether Sam wanted it or not. Forty years in hell, he put up with a lot for that kid. He'd gone willingly. Almost without regret. And now that he was back? He had been tortured and the torturer. If Sam thought him weak, then clearly Sam was still underestimating him.

Most of all, he was tired of Sam's crap. He was tired of a Sam he didn't recognize. A Sam who was a stranger to him. He was tired of Sam's mysterious contacts and the hunts Sam went on when he was dead. Dean was _dead_ and Sam was living life, drinking and watching movies and sleeping around and killing things and using his powers. The best of all worlds, it seemed.

But Dean _was _back. He still didn't really know why (still didn't _want_ to know why) but damn it. He'd played nice with Sam all his life. Now he just wanted answers.

And something to drink. Maybe some food. His stomach was grumbling. At least, if he couldn't figure out what to do with Sam, he could probably remedy the emptiness of his stomach.

Shuffling past the living room, he found the doctor in the kitchen. She was wearing a different sweatshirt today, but it was equally ratty. Seated at the table, she appeared to be highlighting an article in the magazine in front of her.

She smiled at him when he came in. "You're looking better," she said. "But you need to eat. Some juice. Get your strength up. The blood loss wasn't terrible and your BP was okay last night, but I don't really want to take any chances."

"Yeah," Dean said, feeling suddenly awkward. Without the pressing need of an injury, it became acutely apparent to him that he really needed to figure her out.

She was pushing out of her seat, moving to a cabinet and pulling out a glass. "You may as well sit," she said. "Do you like eggs? They're about the only thing I make well."

He watched as she opened the fridge and took out a carton of orange juice. "Yeah," he said again, sitting carefully. "That'd be fine."

She shook her head, pouring a glass and putting it in front of him. "And here I thought you'd be the talkative one," she said. "I've been sitting in here with Sam all morning and he hasn't said more than two words to me. Makes a girl feel kind of lonely."

Friendly enough. No hint what her angle was. It made him uncomfortable--even more uncomfortable than the line of stitches creeping through his nether regions. He couldn't be sloppy. Not now. Not with Sam heading in as precarious a direction as he was.

"Right," she said, then turned back to her cabinets. Rustling around, she came up with a pan. "Do your stitches feel like crap?"

"What?"

She looked at him over her shoulder as she pulled butter and eggs out. "Your stitches," she said. "Must be bothering the hell out of you right now."

Dean felt himself blush despite himself. "Well--"

She just laughed a little. "Come on, I put them in," she said. "Stitches feel like crap in the best of locations and that is definitely not the best of locations."

_She could say that again_, Dean thought, shifting.

"Some Ibuprofen will help," she said. "I'd remind you how to take care of them, but if you're really Sam's brother, I doubt you'll need much of a reminder."

"And why's that?" Dean asked, finally seeing an opening in her friendly chatter.

She glanced at him, eyebrows raised. "What do you mean?"

"Why would me being Sam's brother make any difference?" It came out like an accusation, and Dean didn't care. It basically was one.

She frowned a little. "Well, let's just say you're not the first Winchester who's showed up on my doorstep bleeding," she said.

"So, that's how you know Sam?"

Something sizzled on the stove and she cracked an egg. She gave a one-shouldered shrug. "More or less."

"More or less?" he asked, the demand for more laden in his voice.

She narrowed her eyes at him over her shoulder. "I take it back," she said, cracking another egg onto the skillet. "You're not the talkative one, you're the jackass who wants to look a gift horse in the mouth."

"Look, lady--"

"Bethany."

"What?"

"My name is Bethany," she said again, taking a spatula to the skillet. "Bethany Dedrichson. And I really am an MD, but I wasn't kidding about the malpractice suits. It happens to the best of us."

Wait? Malpractice? With his greatest assets?

She rolled her eyes. "Even Sam fell for that one."

The joke did nothing to allay his suspicion. "Look, _Bethany_, it's great that Sam trusts you and all, but I don't know you."

"But I sure know you," she quipped with a suggestive waggle of her eyebrow.

"This isn't funny."

She sighed, turning and crossing her arms over her chest. "Yeah, well, sometimes laughing is the only way you get through the day without screaming," she said. "Call it a coping mechanism. As far as they go, this one's pretty healthy. Which is more than I can say about you two."

"You don't even know me," Dean said.

"And you don't even know me," she said evenly. "You let me stitch you up, but you're acting like I've done something wrong."

"Well, excuse me, but people have to earn my trust."

"Sam trusts me."

Dean scoffed at that. "You're assuming that carries much weight with me."

She cocked her head and looked genuinely perplexed. "You don't trust him?"

"Like I said, you don't know me, and you clearly don't know him very well."

"Well, the way you talk, I'm beginning to wonder if you do, either."

"What?"

Her gaze narrowed. "You heard me. He drags your ass here, has me save your life, and you wake up the next morning questioning his trustworthiness? Acting like you couldn't care less if he's around?"

He wasn't up for advice, especially not when it came to Sam. And where did this woman get off, anyway? Dean was too tired for this crap--too tired, too sore, too hungry, and too _everything. _And this chick? She didn't know. She _didn't know_. And she had _no right_.

Being with Sam was impossible. The lies. The secrets. The demons. The _powers_. And Dean had sat through it all, stuck with Sam through it all. He'd even spent most of his life defending the kid, protecting him, believing in him. And for what? To be told he was weak? To be told that Sam didn't care about what he thought at all? To tell his brother he wanted him back with one breath and that he was holding him back in the next?

Dean should have dumped Sam's ass right then and there. But that wasn't Dean. Not his style. Dean had responsibilities, and Hell or no Hell, trustworthy little brother or not, Sam was still his. Sam didn't deserve it at all but Dean was _still here_. "You know _nothing_," he seethed. "You haven't been with him day in and day out for the last six months."

"No," she agreed. "And where were you this summer when Sam was nearly getting himself killed left and right?"

Dean just rolled his eyes. It was a sob story he didn't need to hear. Sam had pulled it on him, puppy dog eyes and all, but the proof was in the pudding. Sam had changed, but he wasn't broken. Just stupid and defiant and damned blind. "So he drank a little beer and went on a few hunts. Got busted up a few time. It happens. And obviously Sam's emotional state was nothing that a little love from a warm body didn't cure."

She scoffed. "Is that really what you think?"

"Lady, I don't _think_, I know."

Her face went dark before she turned purposefully back toward the stove. She poked the skillet. "You think you know," she said softly, not looking at him. "But you weren't here."

Yeah, well, excuse him for being a little too busy being in _Hell._

She moved the skillet off the burner, turning it off before turning back around. "It's never been any of my business, but Sam's the one who keeps showing up here and laying out his damned emotional baggage all over my spare room. And I always had to wonder, you know? What made people like you do what you do."

"People like us?"

"Hunters, or whatever the hell you call yourselves," she said. "I mean, everyone has a reason to throw their lives away like that, don't they? Some kind of psychological trauma to get them there?"

"What, you think nice sane boys can't grow up to hunt demons?"

She snorted a little, moving to the table, and sitting across from him. "Well, given Sam's textbook denial tactics and your perpetual chip on the shoulder, I think I'm pretty confident in that assertion, even if it has been nearly ten years since my Psych rotation."

"Yeah, well, you can leave the psycho babble for Sam," Dean said. "I don't need it."

She just rolled her eyes. "Of course not," she said. "And Sam's just fine and dandy by your brilliant estimation."

And why shouldn't he be? Not that Dean didn't appreciate that Sam had gone through something while Dean was gone, but relatively speaking, Sam didn't know crap about suffering. Dean was the one who died, the one who had gone to hell, and Sam just wanted to say _boo hoo_? Twenty-five years and it had all been about Sam. That was more than enough.

Dean shook his head. "Look, a lot of stuff has gone on in the last year for us, some crazy stuff and both Sam and I have been through our ups and downs. But trust me, Sam's _fine_. A pain in the ass and a liar in the extreme, but when it comes to self-confidence, my brother's more sure of himself than he should be."

"You think so?"

"I _know_ so."

"I still don't see it," she said, with a flippant shrug. "He seems sober now, at least--"

Dean groaned. He'd heard Sam's story. How he'd been drinking and popping pills and chasing dangerous demons until Saint Ruby showed up. "A few beers does not make a guy an AA candidate."

"No, but raiding a stranger's fridge when you can barely stand up on your own two feet to avoid getting clean, yeah, that kind of does."

"You would deprive a guy of pain relief?"

She looked a little dumbfounded. "He was drunk off his ass the first time he showed up here," she said, matter-of-fact. "Didn't stop drinking throughout the entire damn thing. Scary good, though, which is why I figure he's still alive at all. I mean, I guess you have to be a certain kind of crazy to do this, anyway, but Sam--I've never seen someone drink so much and still be functioning, and that's in ten years of emergency medicine work. Of course, I also hadn't seen anyone quite so methodically suicidal."

Drunk, he might believe. After all, Winchesters had a penchant for alcohol and with no one there to hold Sam back, apparently Sam knew nothing of self-control. Thinking about Ruby and the powers, a little alcohol seemed like the least of Sam's issues.

But suicidal? He knew Ruby had saved Sam's life, but a wayward charge to get Lilith hardly made a guy a case for the psych ward.

Damn woman was a quack. Malpractice was the least of her worries. "My brother's not suicidal."

She clenched her jaw. "I'm not sure what else you'd call it. Sam came here by himself. Hunting demons. Wielded a knife, memorized exorcisms. Drew markings and symbols all over the place without even using a book. I know I don't know much about this kind of stuff, but I'm going to take a guess and say that usually you guys like to cross your t's and dot your i's. You know, be prepared. Not leave the knives and holy water out of arm's reach. Not chug alcohol while you're trying to recite Latin from memory. Everything he did, he seemed to know what he was doing, but it was completely reckless."

"That's not Sam," Dean said without thinking. Because it _wasn't_. Not the cold and calculated Sam he'd seen when he'd come back. Not the one who could lie to his brother's face about his dying wishes. And, sure as Hell, not the Sam that told him that he had killed more demons in four months than they had together in years. It _wasn't_.

The doctor just raised her eyebrows. "Remember how you weren't there?" she said.

"Yeah, well, remember how you don't know my brother?"

"Yeah, well, maybe you don't either."

"Look, lady--"

"_Bethany_."

He didn't give her the satisfaction. "A lot has happened between me and my brother in the last year and, trust me, you couldn't possibly know the half of it. And I do. And Sam? Is fine. Had a rough time, but hey, big brother's back in town so all is well in who-ville for little Sammy."

She snorted. "It looked like more than a tough time to me."

Dean bristled. "Hunting is dangerous. He may have flown by the seat of his pants, but we're not talking hard core suicidal tendencies here. I would have seen some kind of evidence of that when I got back, don't you think?"

"Suicide doesn't just mean slitting your wrists and downing a bottle of pills," she said. "Sam just seemed--I don't know. Like he wanted to die so badly but was refusing to do it himself. Like there was something holding him back. I always figured it was all tied together, what made him like that, what kept him falling apart and hanging on all at once."

Something like pride. Something like Dean's last wishes.

That might make sense. It _might_. That was the kind of desperation that seemed to define the Winchesters. That had pushed his mother to bargain for his dad's life. That had pushed his father to trade his soul for Dean's life. That had pushed Dean right to the crossroads himself instead of facing Sam's corpse.

The thought of it, of Sam being as desperate as the rest of his family had been--that Sam had wanted him back _that _badly--was oddly reassuring. Something Dean hadn't realized how badly he'd wanted to hear until the words were rolling around in his head.

But, if it was true, then, why? If Sam cared about him so much, if Sam had wanted to live up to the family legacy, then why had he lied about everything, from the very beginning? Why had he barely acted like he cared that Dean was back at all? Why Ruby and why the powers and _why_?

"You mean you really don't know all this?" Bethany asked. She sat back, quirking an eyebrow.

Dean's flattened his expression, and he bit back a curse. "I know enough."

"Yeah, I'm seeing that," she said.

Enough games. If there was something to this, then it was time to get it out on the table. "Well, why don't you enlighten me, since you know my brother _so _well."

She didn't rise to the sarcasm in his voice. "The details aren't pretty."

"And our lives seem so damn picturesque?"

She inclined her head. "Just don't say I didn't warn you."

-o-

_It's June and Lincoln is hot. Children spend their days running through sprinklers and jumping in pools. Mothers sit with their babies under shade trees and awnings, sipping bottled water and talking about who-said-what around town._

_That's where the rumors start. That something's not right on Redmond Lane._

_A doctor lives there who works at the hospital. She has a handsome husband, too; good woman with a good man. A teacher--high school math and he coaches junior high basketball in the winter. They've tried, God knows, to have kids, and it's a little sad, but they're getting by._

_At least they were. But something's funny now. Something about that house. Lights on all night. And the smell. Like there's something rank in the garbage, but it just never goes away. Then loud noises at the most random times. The pretty little flower bed by the driveway all shriveled up._

_They stop coming out together. No more baseball games, no more twilight walks. They see her leave for work and come home again, but he hasn't been seen in nearly a month._

_And what is with this weather lately? The craziest freak storms you ever saw. Global warming--maybe Al Gore is right._

_It's gossip to them, odd tidbits and noteworthy morsels, but it's something more. When a '67 Chevy rolls into town, no one notices but the kid down the street who's in to muscle cars. No one even looks twice at the guy who flashes his CDC badge door to door, asking about anything weird, anything at all. _

_It's not the badge or the case he mentions that they remember; it's the smell on his breath--too minty fresh to be real--and those bags under his eyes--poor boy looks worked half to death. _

_When he finally knocks on the door 2717 Redmond Lane, though, it's a different story entirely. The rest of the neighbors were curious and perplexed, but that doctor and her husband were a whole lot more than that. _

_Because it's not the doctor or her husband. It's two demons, straight from Hell, powerful and bent on mayhem. So when he goes to that door, it's a fight both sides are ready for. _

_To the rest of the neighbors, though, it's just another random development. There's the sizzle of holy water and the screech of the other world but the kids next door just turn the TV up higher and wonder what kind of kinky stuff is going on._

_The struggle inside is brief, because the man knows what he's doing. He can barely walk straight, but he's focused; undeterred. Subduing them is the hard part, because knocking out a demon is no easy feat, and it takes almost more holy water than he has, especially since his aim's not very good these days._

_The holy water subdues them enough; there's no point in tying them for now. Without the symbols on the floor, the demons could break any bond, anyway, so he just needs to get his ass in gear._

_He drinks hard and fast from a flask in his pocket (which he always holds near) and the taste of whiskey is the most alive he can feel at all._

_The house is already a mess, with furniture overturned and pictures askew and the collection of glass stemware in the china cabinet has seen better days. He takes spray paint to the floors and pours salt liberally at the door and doesn't think twice because, even if he were sober, he would know it has to be this way._

_Luckily he knows how to make the sigils in his sleep, so doing it while drunk is not that much harder. The lines bend and curve with his unsteady hand, but crude or not, they'll do the trick._

_He makes two--a his and hers--and drags the bodies into the center of each. Pulling in two chairs from the kitchen, he props one body up in each and ties them down, because it makes it a little easier when they can't move at all._

_When he's done, he trips backwards into a chair and gropes through his pocket for the flask. Another drink and his vision blurs, and he wishes he were someplace else._

_He's staring, almost sleeping, when the first one stirs. He spares a second for one more drink before he lumbers to his feet._

_The woman in the chair looks confused at first, then annoyed as she looks at Sam. Her eyes flash demon black and her smile is vile. "Sam Winchester," the demon coos._

_Sam offers a half-hearted grin and starts the exorcism. He knows it by heart, because there is nothing else for him to do with his time._

_She grimaces. "What, no interrogation?" she asks. "No demands? No, _tell me what I want to know or I'll send you back to hell_?"_

"_It doesn't matter," he says. "I'm sending you back anyway." And keeps the litany going._

_She trembles, and pain escapes in a grunt. She stares up at him through blonde hair that isn't hers. "You disappoint me," she says. "They said you'd gone off the deep end, but I figured you'd at least try a little harder."_

_He doesn't even respond to that one, just keeps going._

_Her head snaps back and she lets out a holler. "Narrow minded!" she yells and her head drops down to look at him. "So blinded by your grief that you don't see an opportunity looking you in the face."_

"_You're not Lilith," he tells her simply. "There's nothing you can offer me."_

"_Are you so sure?" she asks, panting now._

_He thinks back to the line of demons who have tried to barter with him. He thinks to the ones that have tried to kill him. He thinks about the crossroads demon and how his soul is useless. _

_He can't help it. He laughs. "Yes," he says and he keeps chanting._

_Because he knows that the demons have what they want. Sam thinks maybe he was a ploy all along, that maybe the entire damn universe is just setting him up for failure. The Yellow Eyed Demon, the Trickster, Lilith--all using him, using the people around him to get him alone, to get him vulnerable, to make him hurt and ache._

_Maybe it's about Dean. Maybe it's about him. Maybe it's about neither of them and both of them and maybe life just sucks._

_Sam doesn't care. He has his flask of whiskey and a memorized exorcism and two demons to kill. The demons never needed a reason, and now he doesn't either. It doesn't bring Dean back (it _never _brings Dean back) and it doesn't make him feel any better (nothing makes him feel better), but it's one more thing to do that doesn't involve swallowing his own gun._

_She's screaming now, fast and incoherent, there's begging and some pleading and, then, it's over with a retch of smoke and a shudder that rocks the house._

_The woman's body goes limp in the chair, held up by the ropes, and Sam doesn't bother to check her as he turns his attention to the man._

_And that's when he realizes the mistake._

_Well, there have been lots of mistakes. But this one may just cost him what little he has left._

_Because the man's black eyes look up at him, awake and alert. He cocks his head to the side and grins. "Took you long enough," he said. "Funny. I heard you were better than that. Oh, wait. That was before. With Dean. Dean always was the better half of you, wasn't he?"_

_Sam just stares, feeling blank. He should probably panic, maybe start reciting, maybe do something, but it's a hard thing because they always talked about how demons lied, but really, in the end, they more often just told the truth._

_A hiss of Latin and a tilt of the head and the floor shakes and cracks just enough to ruin the entire thing. The trap is broken, the seal undone, and Sam's got nothing but an exorcism and a flask to defend himself._

_The knife is over in the bag. So is the rest of the holy water. His lunge in that direction is meager to say the least._

_He hits a wall before he makes it two feet and he falls to the ground in a rain of plaster. Staggering, he rolls to his front, making it to his knees before he's flying again. He smashes into an end table this time, taking a lamp hard in the kidney, and when he opens his eyes, he's looking at the small man stalking toward him._

"_The great Sam Winchester," the demon says. "Immune to so much." His smile widens. "But not to the simple stuff."_

_A flick of the wrist and Sam hits the ceiling, but doesn't fall, flies instead to a far wall where breaking through the plaster rattles his brain. There's not a second of reprieve before he smashes into something glass this time, raining shards in his hair, and he falls face first into a sea of it._

_For a second, he can't move. His body aches and his chest feels tight. His head throbs and his vision is dark around the edges. He's screwed. He's got no back up and there's a demon on the loose and he couldn't walk a straight line even before this all began._

"_Lilith is a genius," the man's voice says. "A true capitalist. Lobbies the marketplace to get what she wants for the best price possible. You Americans should revere her. She sees your poor little soul rotting in the afterlife and sees Dean Winchester bending over backwards to get you out. And why not? Dean's soul is pure and good--well, _was_ pure and good. The things he's up to these days--that's another story entirely."_

_That's the part that pushes him over the edge and he's crying and he can't stop and he doesn't care. "Shut up," he spits out, and blood runs down his chin._

_The demon cocks his head with mock sympathy. "But you haven't heard the best part, Sam," he says. _

_Sam doesn't want to. He really doesn't want to. But the demon saunters closer, too close. There's no force holding Sam back this time, but he still can't move._

_The demon licks the lips of its host and its gaze seems to bore into Sam's skull. "The best part, the kicker that makes Lilith damn near perfect, is that she got your brother to sell his soul for _you_. Your soul? Isn't worth anything. What does Hell want with another tarnished soul? You're already ours. We don't need to trade for you. We don't need to worry about whatever good deeds you try to tell yourself you're doing on earth. Your eternal torment was planned from the day old Azazel bled in your mouth. And yet, by having you up here, we got something so much more. Dean threw his soul away for you, so you could live. Well, now, isn't that funny. Here you are. But I wouldn't really call this pathetic existence living, would you?"_

_No, Sam wouldn't. It was nothing like living, it was everything like dying and Sam just wants it to be over._

_This is the moment, though. Sam's been here so many times. That last chance. The final escape. Demons are prone to monologuing, to laying it all out on the table, and that's where they get sloppy. Where they let their guard down. Sam should be plotting, should be eyeing the bag with the knife and the holy water and be ready to make that one last leap to save himself._

_This is the moment, and Sam's _knows_ it._

_He lets it pass._

_The demon smirks. "And you roll over and play dead," he says. "Once and future king. Killing you doesn't change anything, but damn. It'll make me feel good."_

_And Sam just closes his eyes, swallows blood, and prays one last time for this to end._

-o-

"Sam wouldn't give up," Dean said before he could even think anything else.

"It was pretty hard to miss."

Dean shook his head. He knew Sam, and that wasn't his brother. That wasn't the younger brother who defied everything and ran off to Stanford. That wasn't the Sam who had stood up to their dad up to the very end. That wasn't the Sam who could cold-heartedly summon a demon just to blow it and its host away. That wasn't the Sam who could lie to Dean's face without a flicker of remorse.

No, Sam was a fighter. For better or worse, always a fighter. "Well, seeing as you were possessed, I'm not sure you are the most reliable witness."

Her face hardened. "I was awake for all of it," she told him. "The demons in my house, using me and my husband. I was awake when that demon took me on my rounds and prescribed the wrong meds and let some guy bleed out just for kicks. And by the time Sam rolled over and played dead? I was awake and in charge of my own body and scared out of my mind."

Dean still couldn't buy it. "So you caught the tail end of a fight," Dean said. "The hunt's hard. It happens."

"Sam nearly died that night," she said. "The demon nearly killed him."

"_Nearly_ being the operative word," Dean insisted stiffly.

Her face turned with a flicker of disgust. "And just where were you exactly while Sam was getting himself _nearly_ killed?"

Dean blanched in spite of himself. "None of your damn business."

"Well, then don't tell me how it was," she said. "Sam was a walking disaster and didn't have a single person to back him up, and now I learn he's got a big brother around? Doesn't add up. Seems to me that wherever you were, you left the kid out to dry, so don't sit there and act like you know how it was."

"I didn't leave by choice," he told her harshly.

Her gaze didn't soften. "So where were you?"

"You _do not_ want to know."

"I figured you were dead," she blurted.

Dean's expression turned guarded. "Did Sam tell you that?"

"Sam didn't tell me crap," she said. "All I knew was that there was a Dean and that he wasn't around. And I couldn't figure why anyone would leave a kid in the state Sam was in without being dead."

Dean offered her a half-hearted smile. "Do I look dead to you?"

She seemed to consider that. "So that still doesn't tell me where you were."

"And I'll keep telling you it is none of your damn business."

She didn't look amused. "_Fine_. But you wanted the details," she told him indignantly. "So I'm telling you the details so don't start questioning them."

"No, I wanted the truth," he said. "Not some overly-dramatic version of it."

"No, you want the truth that makes your life easier," she snapped back. "You want to think that Sam was a-okay for some reason. I don't know why you think that."

Dean leaned forward, a surge of anger moving through him. "I don't _want _to think that. I just have to make sense of it. Because Sam's been able to hunt just fine since I've been back. He's been his usually bitchy self, only on a whole new level. I'm not seeing any suicidal tendencies. No drinking binges. Not even alcohol hiding in the car. No, my brother's doing just fine. His tendency to be a jackass is just who he is now."

"Wait," she said, a disbelieving smile on her face. "Are you pissed because you think your brother is stronger than that or are you pissed because you don't think he missed you enough during whatever summer vacation you were on?"

Dean wanted to scoff, to deny, but her question hit him harder than he would have expected. It was that niggling doubt that had hit him the minute he found a girl in Sam's motel room. That pain in knowing that, of all the things Sam had failed to follow through on, his ability to move on after Dean's death wasn't one of them.

"You don't think he missed you," she said, gaping a little. "Dean, you've got it all wrong. When I tell you Sam wanted to die, I mean he wanted _to die_. And if he ever was the person you seem to think he was, then there was a pretty big reason for it. I don't know where you were or why you two weren't together, but whatever went down, I'm guessing it changed your brother. He didn't even try to defend himself against that demon, and it gave him every chance. I can't imagine that's exactly called good hunting. When I tried to get him to go to the hospital, he flat out refused."

Dean gave a small shrug, his face guarded. Still didn't add up. Still didn't explain Sam's lies. "We're not big into hospitals."

"A few stitches, sure," she agreed. "Sam was bleeding out. How he didn't shatter half the bones in his face, I'm still not sure. He almost died right there in that bedroom you slept in."

"If he was so bad off, why didn't you call for help?"

Her gaze was penetrating. "My house looked like a war zone and that didn't even begin to describe the weird drawings all over the place. I just--didn't want to deal with it. I don't think I was ready to admit it to myself. I mean--I still don't even know how to wrap my mind around what happened to me."

"So you decided to just play doctor at home?"

"I had the skills and enough equipment," she said, shrugging slightly. "Couldn't swing a blood transfusion but I could pump him full of fluids to help him ride it out. Seemed like the thing to do at the time. I may know a thing or two about coping mechanisms myself. Avoidance is a personal favorite. At least it's not quite as self destructive as drinking and sloppy exorcisms."

"Hey, I'm not saying Sam didn't go through something," Dean said, because, okay, yeah. He would have to suspect as much. Watching your brother get killed right in front of you was no picnic. Dean knew that from experience. But life sucks. Sam moved on. That much Dean had seen. "But he got over. By the time I got back, he was stone cold sober and getting some action."

And, if he were honest with himself, that _hurt_. Seeing Sam shacking up with a girl while he was pulling himself out of a grave had been difficult enough. Finding out that it'd been Ruby--a _demon_ and that his brother had continued to hunt with her even after Dean had gotten back? Was yet more evidence of the depth of Sam's betrayal.

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, and no one ever uses sex as an escape."

Well, fine. Maybe. But it had been a damn fine coping mechanism. And it didn't change the fact that it wasn't the sex that bothered him. It was Ruby. She was a demon who had lied to Sam up until the very end--well, Dean's end.

Funny how he always thought of it like that. That his death was the end. Time had stopped for Dean, but it hadn't for Sam. Sam had kept living and kept breathing and he'd told Sam to move on, to remember what he'd been taught, and what did Sam do? He'd blown it. Squandered it. Thrown it away like _garbage_. Dean had made a deal, but he hadn't gone against every moral fiber and teaching he'd ever been told. He hadn't compromised all his standards. He'd lived up to his responsibilities. He'd saved Sam. And knowing that Sam hadn't--didn't make him feel any sorrier for the kid.

"But there was some girl," she continued with a shrug. She glanced over her shoulder, as if worried Sam might hear. "Some brunette."

"Ruby," Dean muttered, sinking low in his seat.

Bethany gave a noncommittal tilt of her head. "I barely met her. But she was the one who dragged Sam here the second time."

"Ruby brought Sam here?"

"Apparently, Sam refused a hospital," Bethany deadpanned back. "Can't imagine that."

"We get banged up," Dean said.

"Yeah, well, Sam nearly died--again."

He wanted to deny it, to say she was wrong, or at least exaggerating. But he didn't know. He had no idea. Sam had never said anything.

Well, and Dean had never asked.

"And Ruby brought him?"

Bethany nodded. "Yet another story you don't know?" she asked.

"You said it yourself, Sam's not very talkative."

"I know, but did you even ask?"

"Like Sam would have told me the truth."

She laughed a little. "Best damn excuse ever," she said. "Absolves you and puts all the blame back on him."

"You going to lecture me or tell me about it?"

She sighed. "Fine," she said. "But this one's no prettier than the first."


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thank you so much for those who responded to chapter one. I was worried that people wouldn't get where I was coming from. Keep my A/N in mind for this part as well. It's Dean who's making realizations, but that doesn't negate Sam's role. That's just another fic entirely. I do miss the brothers, though. United, caring about each other--the stuff of S1. Continued thanks to my betas, who helped a lot in this fic. This was a mess when I finished it. It's only readable because of them :)

* * *

CHAPTER TWO

_It's late July and Lincoln is back to normal. People just sort of raise their eyebrows on Redmond Lane, but there's nothing more to say about that, nothing that people can say for sure, though the rumors run rampant enough._

_But the doctor doesn't care. Only goes out once a week to the grocery store and doesn't look anyone in the eye. She doesn't talk about her job and she doesn't talk about her husband and she doesn't talk about her house. Basically, she doesn't talk at all._

_No one even notices when that black Chevy rumbles back onto the street, not since that kid down the block with a thing for classics has gone to college. A few people will see it parked in the driveway, but figure even freaks have families who have to come to visit sometimes._

_It's a rainy day and surprising cool, though, when the doctor's doorbell rings. She's so surprised by it that she barely even remembers to answer the door._

_At first, all she sees in a tall woman with dark brown hair and a tired expression on her face. She's got something--no, someone--leaned up against her and it looks awkward as hell and the smile on her face says just as much. "He said I could take him here," she says, and there's no apology in her voice._

_The doctor takes a moment, a long moment, to look at the tall figure slumped against the woman's body. It takes a minute, a long minute, but she recognizes the hair and the bruised features underneath. "Sam?"_

_The woman looks a little relieved. "So, you think we can speed this up?" she says. "He's not exactly a lightweight."_

_That's an understatement the doctor remembers from her last encounter. "Yeah," the doctor says, too shocked to say anything else. "Bring him in."_

_The doctor steps out of the way, and the woman adjust her grip, hoisting Sam a little more securely. His feet are moving, but only barely, and it's a slow and stumbling trip to the first spare bedroom._

"_Just--lay him here," the doctor says, feeling a little useless. She doesn't know what else to do. What to say. Why they're here. Who this woman is._

_The woman complies, stretching Sam out on the bed with little grace. When she's done, the woman steps back with a sigh and a look of resignation. "Just don't let him , if you can help it," she says._

_That was never the doctor's intention and it seems like an oddly simplistic and somewhat cold request._

_The woman pulls out a piece of paper from her back pocket and puts it on the dresser. "If anything should happen, you can call me," she says. "Sam shouldn't be much trouble when he wakes up."_

_It's almost reflex to ask why, but the doctor's voice doesn't seem to be working. Because this is too much like before. Too much like last time. Too much like when it all fell apart. That's what this boy represents. He had a part in this, a part in getting her here, and for that, she both hates him and loves him in equal turns._

_The woman turns to leave and the doctor opens her mouth to protest. "Where are you going?"_

_The woman just looks at her. "Trust me, you don't need me here," she says. "Sam will know where I am, if he wants me."_

_And just like that, she walks out and leaves the doctor alone with Sam._

_He looks somehow younger this time, the years stripped away in unconsciousness. Young and vulnerable, even despite the lean physique and tall stature. He doesn't fit the bed, long legs hanging off the end. One arm drapes haphazardly across his stomach while the other trails off the edge. His clothes are bloodied and ripped, speckled with enough blood to be of some concern. His face is mottled, the worst of the damage over his right eye so that it's nearly unrecognizable and she's sure it won't open._

_But it's a tightly tied tourniquet on the leg that's the pressing need, she can see that without even looking closer. The strip of cloth on his thigh is tied off tied, hasty but effective, though the jeans beneath that point are nearly saturated despite it._

_The pallor of his skin is bad, translucent and gray, and there is a tinge of blue on his lips and eyelids. Whatever happened, the wound seems a day or so old, and he needs treatment--now._

_It takes her a moment to find her supplies, they're sparse now, but they'll do, and she dumps them on the floor, hands shaking as she picks up her scissors and hovers over him._

_This is the boy who saved her life. She can remember the lines on his forehead, too creased for his age, and she can remember the husky gravel of his voice, from too much pain and too much alcohol._

_It doesn't seem real, him being here. But then again, nothing in her life seems real, these days._

_She could leave him there. Leave him to bleed and to die and she isn't sure anyone would care. If someone cared about him, they would be here, they would be with him. They wouldn't drop him off like a puppy at the pound._

_But he came for her when no one else would. He came and tried to fix what he could. She owes him this. _

_Besides, she has nothing else to do. _

_Her hands steady as she cuts up his pant leg. She snips them up until she hits the tourniquet and pauses. Tourniquets are useful tools, she knows, and removing one prematurely can be the difference between life and death. But if she leaves it too long, he'll lose his leg._

_Peeling away the denim, she finds the wound packed hastily with gauze, taped and saturated. Efficiently, she pulls it off and grimaces a little when she sees what's underneath._

_It's a jagged cut, maybe three inches long, but deep. With gloved hands, she pokes at it, slides her fingers inside and feels the meat all the way to the bone. The placement is bad, probably knicked the femoral, which explains the need for a tourniquet._

_It looks like a puncture wound of some sort, maybe a short knife or dagger. Whatever it was, it came and did its damage, and left a mess in its wake. It surely hurt the kid like hell, though it looks like he gave up that fight a while ago. _

_The wound isn't exactly fresh, and she can already feel the flush of fever on his skin. Antibiotics, she has, even some saline. He could use some blood, but she doesn't have anything like that. She just needs to clean this up, flush it out and stitch it tight. It's not that it won't heal, it's that his body might not survive the shock or the fever at this point._

_But she has to try. Impossible tasks seem to be a new thing of hers, and this kid is her only chance to prove to herself that she's still capable of something._

_When she finishes that wound, she cuts off the rest of his clothes and tends to the others. There are a few that need stitches, but most just need to be clean and tended, which she does with a slow, methodical ease that she's missed. When he's finally clean, he doesn't look much better, and the fever is climbing. She puts a cold compress on his forehead and covers his lower half with a sheet and hunkers down for the long haul._

_They spend days like that. The boy on the bed, too weak to move, and the doctor in the chair, trying to keep him alive. She reads some, tries to catch up on some journals she's neglected, but watches him more often than not. Most of the time, he's more unconscious than asleep, and the stillness is deep. But there are moments when his fever is spiking when he tosses and moans, as much as his feeble body will allow and he mutters and cries, calling only one name: Dean._

_She worries, in spite of everything, that her best efforts just won't be enough._

_She changes his compress, rolls him from side to side to keep his skin from getting sore, even packs ice under his armpits to combat the fluctuating fever, but mostly she just wonders if there's someone out there who wonders where he is, who would call his name in their delirium, or if he's really that alone that he has to suffer in a stranger's house calling the name of a person who will never come._

_She thinks of her husband, remembers Steve, and knows kind of how the kid feels._

_When he awakes, days later, he's confused and weak, but he doesn't ask how he got here or why she's helping him. She lets it go, most of it, because it's kind of none of her business, but he's the stranger in her bedroom so maybe it is._

_But he hasn't gotten any more talkative since the last time he was here. He deflects her questions with a smile. He tells her that the job is hard and that he's grateful and he'll be out of her hair just as soon as he can move. The funny thing is that most of that is true, and they both know it, but he's leaving out the important parts._

_She understands his games. They're the ones she's been trying to play since the first time he broke into her house and pulled a demon out of her body._

_She can't help but wonder, though, just how much he remembers about that. Enough to come back, it seems, but he'd been more than a little drunk at the time and more than a little out of it at the end. When she asks him if he wants a drink, though, he blushes deep red._

"_I've let that go," he says. "It doesn't help."_

_She nods. "Neither does getting yourself sliced up."_

_He shrugs. "I can avoid drinking," he said, "but some parts of the life I can't get away from."_

"_And which parts of those?"_

_He just smiles. _

_She doesn't know what else to say, and he's certainly not pushing the issue, so the rest of his recovery is quiet. He limps to the bathroom a few times a day and sleeps a lot and, sometimes, she hears the shower run._

_It's minimal contact at that point, but she likes hearing him move throughout the room. She likes the sound of the springs squeaking on her spare bed. They make her feel like she's not alone, like she's safe. It's been a long time since she's felt that way. _

_After a week, he's awake for most of the day and he's not shuffling quite so much and he makes small talk now. She wonders if maybe she can help him as much as he could help her. Because sometimes it takes time to learn how to live again, and there's something about a shared space that bonds people. She knows, if nothing else, she wants to try._

_But that night he's packing and when she asks him why, he says Ruby called and he has to go._

_She tries to ask for more, tries to explain that he's barely able to stand for twenty minutes at a time, that he needs more time--_

_But he's not listening. It's like he's zeroed in, like a drunk and his bottle, and all he'll promise is that he'll spend one more night, and then he's leaving._

_Turns out, he doesn't even make it that long. She hears the front door close at midnight, hears the rumble of an engine, and never sees him again._

-o-

"And then, out of the blue, all these months later, here he is," she said. "I sort of thought he was probably dead."

It was a cold thought. Sam almost dying and no one knowing any different except a demon. He'd accepted that Ruby was partly responsible for Sam's so-called recovery but with more secret phone calls and solo walks, Dean's patience with was running thin with the entire situation.

Still, this was his first hard evidence since he'd been back that maybe Ruby hadn't been altogether altruistic in regards to Sam. And since Sam wasn't going to spill the beans, maybe Bethany would. "Did he say anything else about her? How long they'd been together, what they were doing?"

Bethany shook her head. "He didn't say much about her, who she was. Just that he was working with her. And when she said jump, you better believe he jumped."

Dean's stomach twisted. It wasn't just about Sam betraying him--it _wasn't_--though sometimes it was hard to keep that in perspective. It was about Sam being vulnerable to Ruby. About Ruby being the same manipulative bitch she'd always been. "The things guys will do for a girl."

"There was something not right about it all," Bethany said. "I mean, Sam was sober that time, but, I don't know. Different. And that girl--there was something just really off about it."

That piqued his interest. Nothing about Ruby seemed _right_, but he'd seen very little of them together. "What do you mean?"

"Well, what kind of girlfriend drags her half-dead boyfriend to the front door and leaves before he's even laid out? Before she knows if he's even okay? She left her number, but she didn't stick around for any of it. Called Sam a week later while he was still on the mend, and Sam was gone the next day. She didn't even come inside."

It sounded about right. His brother said Ruby had saved his life. It was clear Sam trusted her, almost implicitly. Any lead she offered, he followed up on, even over Dean's objections. The late night rendezvous and the early morning calls were evidence enough. Apparently, Sam didn't care who it was, he just liked someone to play point. Dean, for all he'd given and done, was expendable. "I can't explain Sam's choices in women," he said. "I've driven myself nuts trying to figure it out."

His bitterness must have been evident. She gave him a tired smile. "My, aren't we good at the woe-is-me," she said.

Dean glared. "I've had to put up with a lot of crap and his little _relationship_ with Ruby, among other things," he said.

"Can we have a conversation for five minutes without making it about you?" she said. "I'm just saying, it was like he traded the alcohol for this weird controlling relationship. Almost like one vice to the next."

Dean didn't buy it. "Sam's a big boy."

"Who obviously didn't know how to cope with the loss in his life," she said. "He did lose you, didn't he? Wherever you were? It had something to do with Sam being alone and so screwed up?"

Dean pursed his lips, feeling more than a little uncomfortable. "It's complicated."

She just rolled her eyes. "I don't care if it's complicated," she said. "Sam was screwed up over _something_. He was alone and he didn't have clue one what he was doing with his life. Did I not mention the part where he was calling your name while he was delirious? So I know it all had something to do with you and I know it had him so far out of whack that we're lucky he's still here today. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Sam was reckless in the hunt. Refusing real treatment. Drinking. Girls. He was avoiding the real issues and trying to let himself die in any mildly heroic way probably out of some sense of honor and pride, maybe trying to live up to some kind of expectation."

"Drinking and sex doesn't sound so bad."

"No, it sounds exactly like _grief_," she said. "I told you. People use whatever they can to stay afloat. When you're drowning, you don't care about who throws the life preserver. You just grab it and cling to it because it's all you can do. I mean, that's what real grief is, isn't it? When nothing inside of you is worth living for, you look for something, _anything_."

There was something in her voice. Something knowing. Something _personal_. This wasn't just about Sam.

Still. Dean knew enough. He knew that Sam struggled, that he tried to get Dean back. Reckless and drinking, fine, that made sense, too. And even if he could write Ruby off as one of Sam's life preservers, it didn't explain _now_. It didn't explain the lack of joy. The lying. Dean went to hell and came back and Sam barely blinked at him anymore. Thought he was weak. Sam had coped and moved on and Dean was stuck dealing with the aftermath. "Well, Sam's floating just fine now," he said. "Stronger and better than ever, if you ask him."

Bethany's look was dispassionate. "Sam's barely said two words to me the entire time he's been here," she said. "So, I guess I can't say for sure."

"Damn right, you can't," Dean said. "I know Sam. Sam's my brother and my responsibility, which is why sometimes I have to stick with his sorry ass even when he drags me through crap like this."

"Gee, and I can feel the love," she said. "Apparently, Sam's not the only one in the family with some unresolved issues."

"Well, at least I give a damn about him," Dean said curtly.

"Yes, and that overly sympathetic display about what your brother went through is completely showing me that."

"Oh, you mean like how sympathetic Sam's been to me? I've been to _hell_ and back, and what does he do? He lies to me. He lies straight to my face. He sneaks out. He barely looks at me. I bare my soul to him and he can't say two words back except boo-freakin'-hoo. So forgive me if I'm not crying a river that he had to sit around drinking beer and having sex."

"It's like talking to a brick wall," she said, shaking her head. "Did you stop for five seconds to think about _why_ he might be doing those things?"

"Besides the fact that he's got his head up his pompous ass?"

"Where as, yours is crystal clear."

"Maybe," he said stiffly. "Maybe not. But at least I know I've got good reasons."

"What--you're the only person in the world who's suffered?"

"I promise you, you do _not_ want to share horror stories with me," he said, his voice low and dangerous. Because he'd been to _hell_. Thirty years of torture. Day after day on the rack. And ten years of a whole different brand of torture, of losing himself. It was there, every time he closed his eyes. Lurking behind every move he made was a lifetime of grotesque emotions that he couldn't erase. Ever.

"And you think he's the pompous ass?"

"What would you know about it?" Dean snapped, his patience wearing thin. No matter what she'd done for him last night, what she'd done for Sam, he didn't have time for this. He didn't have time to listen to some out of work M.D. who wanted to play Dr. Phil in her free time.

"You're right," she said, leaning forward, eyes blazing. "I know nothing about you. And hell, I don't really know anything about Sam. But you don't know anything about me either."

"Hey, you're the one who started talking," Dean said defensively. All he wanted was some damn breakfast and a fast trip out the front door.

"Did you ever consider that maybe your brother doesn't tell you the truth because you suck at listening?"

"No wonder you two got along," Dean mumbled. "Same warped thinking process. Worried about the reaction, so, what? You lie?"

"Well what did _he _tell you about the summer?"

Dean opened his mouth and then shut it. Sam had told him that he was alone. That he was alone and desperate. There had implications of course, of cutting it close, of reckless behavior. And signs of pulling away, of cutting ties. Most of it had been about Ruby, about how she pulled him out of his darkness and shown him that damn demonic light. The powers, going after Lilith, sleeping with her.

The parts Dean had asked about.

Bethany was staring at him, a hint of realization dawning on her face. "You actually never asked him, did you?"

Dean's eyes shot up, and he tightened his jaw. "I did."

"You get your panties in a twist because Sam lies to you but you never even _asked_."

"I asked," Dean said again, harsher this time.

"Were you your ever-sympathetic self?"

"I swear to God--"

Beth just rolled her eyes. "You think you scare me?"

"Maybe I should."

"I know just where to kick you that you wouldn't be getting up."

Dean paled a little, his anger simmering. He didn't want to threaten her. Wouldn't. He'd done more than enough of that for one lifetime. For two lifetimes. Hell, for _eternity. _He just--was angry. Angry at Sam. Angry at her. Angry at everything she was telling him. Angry that she didn't know and acted like she damn well did.

He swallowed evenly, reigning himself back in. "So, tell me," he said. "If Sam was so bad off, why didn't the demon kill him, that first time he was here?"

It was Bethany's turn to pale, a muscle twitching along her jaw. She nodded slowly. "He didn't do it for himself," she said.

"What?"

Her shoulders sagged, and she looked at the wall behind Dean. "Sam finished the exorcism."

"Well, that certainly blows a hole in your whole suicidal theory."

She looked at him again, her eyes cold. "He did it to save me."

-o-

_The battle should be epic. The boy king and its demon half-brethren. Two diametrically opposed forces, more similar than either cared to admit. Both powerful and powerless in equal turns, the one advantage the demon has is the willpower to see it through._

_Sam's hurt, badly, but it shouldn't be over yet. His injuries could kill him, but both he and the demon know better than to think that it should all be finished so quickly. So easily. There should be a fight. There should be a last-minute save, or at least the attempt at one. _

_The demon is almost disappointed when there isn't. Because Sam rolls over and closes his eyes and gives up._

_The demon could let him go, but this child sent his partner back to hell. Banished her after all the fun they'd had. Revenge is a sweet thing, and the bragging rights? Well, those wouldn't be too bad either. _

_He's considering the crushing blow, whether throwing him around until every bone is broken is the way to go, or maybe ramming him straight through the wall. And there were always more primitive tactics. Slicing him open, pulling out his organs one by one just to hear him scream until he couldn't anymore. Maybe pulling him apart just to see how far those human limbs could go._

_Lots of fun things to try._

_But before he can make up his mind, something hits his borrowed body hard. _

_He can't help it. Demon or not, he stumbles forward, surprised. And angry._

_Turning, he pulls this body to its full height, and while it's not that impressive, he doesn't need this body's strength to do his dirty work._

_It's the woman, his partner's host. The doctor. She's standing, eyes red but not in the good way, fire poker in one hand. She's listing heavily to the side, panting erratically._

_His grin returns. He'd forgotten about her. And really, why had she been important? As a host to his mate, she'd been one thing. Now, she was merely human. Not even a hunter. Not a scrap of Latin to save her life. More than that, she was blindly brave, which was a beautiful stupid thing for her to be._

_Two for the price of one, at least._

"_Silly woman," he says, and she trembles at his voice. "Don't you remember our wedding vows? To honor and cherish, in sickness and in health. In good times and in bad."_

_She's crying now but swallows hard. "You're not my husband."_

"_But I am," he says. "He's right in here with me. And trust me, sweetheart. These are some very bad times we have coming."_

_He's about to finish it, when holy water burns down his back. He convulses, and it burns again, and then there's Latin pouring over him, pulling at him, prying at his grip on this body._

_It's coming too fast for him to resist, and when the Latin compels him all the way out, he leaves with a screech and a howl that follows him back to Hell._

_And in the battered living room, the doctor huddles on the floor and looks across the limp body of her husband to the boy who's barely standing on the other side of the room._

_He looks weak, exhausted, and just ready to be done._

_Before she can move, before she can ask a single question, he collapses to the floor and she finds herself alone._

-o-

"Sam didn't save his life," Bethany explained. "He saved mine. Again. He didn't lift a finger in his own damned defense but did everything he had to do when it was my life on the line."

Dean remembered his brother's defense for his actions. That he'd been alone. That what he did worked. That he just wanted to save people.

He remembered a drunk Sam in Connecticut, hoping to balance some cosmic scorecard. A broken Sam in Providence, just wanting to believe there was something good looking out for them.

And it had made Dean so mad. And disappointed. That Sam doubted himself, doubted Dean, needed to make hunting some crutch to get through. That Sam had compromised so much, squandered that second chance Dean had bought for him with so dear a price.

But could he say he was any different? That he didn't turn to alcohol to get him through the day sometimes? That hunting wasn't an escape, that there wasn't some need to make himself atone for his sins? That sometimes it helped to know that there might be justice out there? That even if he didn't always understand Castiel, that some days that hand on his shoulder freaked him out, it still felt pretty damn good?

Even though he hated needing help, that sometimes it felt good to talk and have someone listen. And he'd never doubted that Sam would be there for him when he was ready. That Sam would never judge him. At least until the whole siren thing. But, even then, boo-hoos aside, Sam had been there. Sam had asked. And Sam had gone on every hunt, he'd sat through every confession and in the end, who did could Dean trust? A siren who was out to turn brother against brother? Or the brother who was still there?

Bethany sighed, letting her head drop for a long moment before looking wearily up at Dean again. "I'm sorry," she said. "This--isn't about you. It's not even really about Sam. I just--I see what you two have."

"And what's that?" Dean asked, his voice tight. Between trips to hell and demonic powers and a never-ending hunt, what did they have? "Let me tell you, our lives--they're not easy. You can't have any idea."

She wet her lips and her eyes looked suspiciously red. "Maybe not," she said. "But you don't know everything either. You come in here, all on your high horse. Making demands and assumptions. Well, fine. You can think the world's crapped all over you and maybe it has. But you know what? I don't really feel sorry for you. Because I was just minding my own business when a demon jumped into my body and took control. It made me kill people. It made me lie and cheat. Another one jumped into my husband and they were plotting something damn near Armageddon. They made us do things, made us screw around with other people, made us burn holes in each other's skin just to see what it looked like. And even when they were gone, you know what they left me with? Do you? I lost my job--criminal charges may be pending. I have no money--the house is mortgaged up to the hilt and I may lose it yet. And my husband--the man who I loved and had been married to for fifteen years--walked out. Didn't call. Wouldn't talk about it. They found him hanging from a rope less than a month later. So, don't you sit there and think you have a corner on the market when it comes to grief."

It was something Dean didn't think about--at least not enough. The aftermath. There was a reason they hightailed it out of town when a job was done. They saved lives. They didn't fix them. Probably because they were too busy running from their own messes to know where to begin.

She shook her head, swallowing. "So, maybe I don't get what you've been through, but what I do know is that your brother, the one you say you can't trust, the one who lies and cheats and whatever the hell else, he dragged you here to save your life. He brought you here and sat there on that couch all night long. Wouldn't go in, said he wanted to give you your space, but wouldn't sleep. Just sat there, watching and listening, like he was waiting to make sure you'd be okay. Didn't matter that I told him you were just fine, it was like he couldn't believe it until he saw it with his own eyes. So, whatever he's doing, whatever crap he's messed up on, it's not about _you_. If anything, watching out for you is about the only time I've seen him look alive since I've met him."

"Wait, he what?" Dean asked.

"Gee, another thing you didn't know," she said. "Color me surprised."

"He sat up all night?"

"Right where you found him this morning. Staring at that same damned page for hours on end. The only time he went in was to put your bag in there."

Dean was shaking his head before he could think otherwise. It didn't add up, it didn't make sense. The shades of the Sam he remembered still didn't parse with this Sam who was here with him now. Because Dean could still _feel_ it. That gut-punch when Castiel told him to stop his brother. That sick realization when he saw Sam using his powers with Ruby. All the lies, the lies to Dean's face about living up to Dean's last wishes. And those cold, cold words under the siren's influence.

That was Sam. _That _was Sam. That was what Dean had put up with, that was what Dean had suffered through, suffered _for_, and he _knew _that. "I want to believe you," he said tightly.

"It's really that hard?"

Dean laughed humorlessly. "You have no idea."

She looked vaguely disappointment, somewhat disgusted. "It's one thing to have a crappy life because that's the hand you're dealt. It's another to sulk away the few good things you have going for you."

"Oh, and you're one to talk," he sassed back. "I'm sure what happened to you was very traumatic and all that, but you want to talk pain? You want to talk torture? You want to talk guilt, and burdens and losing every _damned_ thing you ever had worth living for? That's _my_ life, and trust me when I say until you've been to hell and back, you will _never _understand that."

The venom in his voice was surprising, even to him. The grief was palpable, the hurt and anger just as much.

Bethany watched him, nodded slowly. "Yeah," she said. "But then again, there's a lot of things about _you_ I'll never understand."

Anger flaring again, Dean pushed to his feet, his chair skidding back loudly. "Leave me alone," he spat.

"You're the one who came here, not me," she said with a cool shrug.

"Yeah, well, I'll fix that pretty quick," he said and he limped past her and headed straight for the bedroom. It wasn't until he had slammed the door behind him and had his bag snatched into his hand, that his defenses broke and he sat down heavily on the bed, wishing he could cry.

-o-

He wasn't sure how long he sat there. It could have been two minutes or it could have been twenty. Time meant less since hell, both slower and faster, as though his soul didn't quite fit back into his mortal body just yet.

He wasn't sure it ever would. After all, hell had torn at him, pulled and ripped until every recognizable part of himself was jagged and disjointed. No matter what miracle Cas had pulled off, stuffing a scarred and ill-fitting soul back into his body still didn't seem right. Even with all his physical scars gone, parts of him were empty now, and other parts overflowing, and the constant imbalance made Dean feel as weak and vulnerable as Sam seemed to think he was.

Sometimes, it made him wish he'd never come back. Other times, it made him so damned grateful he had.

Because living was hard now, weighed down and painful, but it _was_ living. It meant something, to come back from that. What he'd done was horrible, but now, he had the presence of mind to see that.

He was trying, now. Trying to make it better. Trying to save others. Trying to live up to the manner of his resurrection. He still didn't know what the angels wanted, but he knew what he wanted--to atone for those ten years.

That was what they didn't understand. Not Bethany. Not Sam.

Sure, Sam had tried. Sam had asked and listened and hunted, but Sam couldn't get it. Obviously didn't get it.

Sam didn't get a lot of things. Sam didn't get that using his powers defeated the whole purpose. Negated the entire damn sacrifice. Dean had died so Sam could _live_. Using his powers, trusting Ruby--that wasn't living. That was a fast track to damnation. It was suicide.

_Suicide_.

Just like Bethany had told him. _Sam was damn near suicidal_.

That was part of the change. It wasn't just that Sam wasn't his usual little-brother self, like Dean just missed his geekery and angst. No, it was that Sam was colder and harder now. Like he'd lost something of himself, too, in those four months.

Only Sam didn't have an angel to put him back together. No, Sam just had a demon to take him further apart.

Dean had to be grateful that Ruby kept Sam alive. Because if Sam was trying to kill himself, at least a slow suicide gave Dean more time. More time to save Sam.

Because that was what it came down to. Sam needed to be saved.

From what, though, Dean wasn't sure he'd thought that through. He'd been too busy being angry, too busy being scared, too busy being angry that he was so damn scared. Because he'd left this earth with only one thing to keep him going: the knowledge that Sam would be okay. The girls, the sneaking out, the powers--that wasn't just Sam changing to spite Dean. That was Sam changing because he'd _lost_ Dean.

In all these months since he'd been back, Dean had resented Sam's newfound independence. He'd chafed at Sam's deep need to hide things. Because Dean just wanted to feel needed again. He just wanted to be that big brother at least in part because it kept him from being that torturer in Hell.

But this time, it'd been Sam who'd been up all night. Just like Sam had researched for days straight and dragged him to Nebraska to find a faith healer. Just like Sam had chased wayward lead after wayward lead to try to break Dean's deal.

Dean muttered a curse.

There it was. The sudden flip side he hadn't been looking for.

While he could see Sam as indifferent and self-absorbed, maybe his brother was just too tired to respond and too afraid to approach him. Maybe he wasn't the only one who felt the growing rift between them.

Was it possible? That his words had hurt Sam just as much as Sam's had hurt Dean?

Was there more than that? Was it possible that Sam's distance wasn't just his brother's disdain for him? Was it possible that Sam was hurting too--hurting so bad that he didn't even know how to function?

Hell, was it possible that his death had broken his brother so completely that all Dean could see now was some fair approximation that Sam had shoddily put back together?

Dean had spent so much time wondering what the hell had happened to his brother and hadn't really thought about _why_. He'd sat around and wondered when it happened, but hadn't looked at the obvious. Didn't let himself.

Those three days without Sam had been the worst part of his life. Worse than hell. The loneliness. The emptiness. _Worse than hell_.

Sometimes, it was easy to forget that in the aftermath, in all the fire and torture, that he'd made the deal with no regrets. Because nothing else had been worth anything during those three days of failure.

Sam had lived four months of failure. Dean had sold his soul after three days. If that hadn't worked, Dean doubted he'd have been alive after four months.

He hadn't told the whole truth with the siren's spell. He knew exactly when Sam changed. And he knew exactly why. Sam was a Winchester, through and through. Sam had lost his brother, lost the last person who mattered in his life, and Dean had to question when Sam fell apart?

It wasn't that he hadn't known, it was that he hadn't wanted to think about it at all. He had wanted to think that he could go to hell noble and upstanding and leave his little brother to carry on his name. It was a beautiful idea, one he'd crafted and refined over that long, inevitable year.

But there was nothing noble about Hell. And there was no way for Sam to carry on. Sam had failed and then forced to live with his failure day after day after day. Neither of them had had any choice but to break.

Dean sighed, looking at the door. It didn't change some things. It didn't change the fact that Sam needed to stop--now. That Sam's soul and life were at risk. It didn't change the fact that Dean needed to stop Sam's extra-curriculars before they went on any longer.

And it didn't change the harshness of Sam's words. Or how much his lies hurt.

But it did change Dean's resentments. They both had grounds to resent each other--they were brothers, after all--but what mattered in the end, was what they did.

Sam had listened, he'd gone on Dean's hunt, he'd stayed up all night keeping a vigil he was too afraid to admit to. He'd _asked_.

It was time for Dean to do the same.

-o-

When he finally came out of his room, Dean found Bethany still at the table, but this time, Sam was there, too. The eggs were on the table, split between two plates. Bethany had eaten most of hers, but the plate in front of Sam had barely been touched. His brother was fiddling with his fork, scooting the scrambled mess around, from one side to another, and Dean recognized the tactic well from the years of canned food that Sam had tried so hard to avoid eating as a child.

Bethany gave him an appraising look as he approached, but said nothing.

Sam, for his part, looked like he wanted to spring to his feet, but Dean saw his brother rein it back in and smile instead.

At first glance, it looked forced. As if his brother were trying too hard to care.

At second glance, it looked constrained. As if Sam didn't feel comfortable in his own skin and wasn't sure, at all, how Dean would respond.

Bethany quirked an eyebrow, her eyes sliding from Dean to Sam to Dean again. "Feeling better?" she asked.

Uncomfortable, Dean limped his way to the table, cautiously pulling out a chair and sitting. "Yeah," he said. "I might take some of that Ibuprofen you talked about earlier."

She seemed to be studying him for a long moment before she offered him a small smile. "Yeah, I'll bet you would," she said. She pushed her chair out. "I'll want to check your stitches before you go. For both of our mental well being."

Dean laughed a little at that. Funny how that was suddenly the least of his concerns. "Sure, no problem."

"I just didn't want you taking off before I got to sign off," she said. "You two seem like the type to slip out without the bill."

Dean was blushing at that before he realized that Sam was, too.

She shook her head, her grin amused now. "I'll be back in a minute," she said.

"Hey," Dean called.

She paused, looking back expectantly.

He took a deep breath, shifting again. "Thanks," he said. "For everything."

Her eyes stayed on him a minute longer, questioning, discerning. "Any time," she said.

Dean watched her as she turned and left and he didn't need to ask to know that she understood just what he was thankful for.

Speaking of which, as nice as Ibuprofen sounded, that wasn't really why he'd come out of the bedroom.

Glancing across the table, he got another look at his brother. The kid was sitting rigidly in the seat, chewing absently at his bottom lip as he slumped in his seat. It could have been detachment. It could have been depression. Dean couldn't risk the latter in assuming the former.

"Good eggs?" Dean asked, and it was a stupid ice breaker, but they had to start somewhere.

Sam didn't look up as he smiled a little. "I guess," he said. With a furtive look from under his bangs, he seemed to assess Dean. "You feeling better?"

"Well, let's just say I could go for another rehymenation right about now, but all the parts seem to be in working order."

Sam nodded. "She's not a bad doctor."

"Kind of a sketchy bedside manner," Dean said. "Doesn't shut up."

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "Persistent, too."

"Seems like just your type," Dean cajoled. "You do dig doctors now, don't you?"

It was the wrong thing to say, Dean realized, watching a haunted look pass through Sam's eyes. Cara had been a one night stand, _love 'em and leave 'em_, by Sam's own admission. Another of his new habits.

But maybe not for the reasons Dean had assumed. Maybe Sam loved and left because he didn't know how to make the effort. After all, when was the last time Dean had seen Sam happy--really, truly _happy_?

"Somehow, I don't think Bethany's looking to hook up," Sam answered carefully.

Dean could heartily agree with that. "No, seems like she's got enough emotional baggage of her own without taking on any of ours."

Sam nodded, looking at his plate.

This was ridiculous. They were brothers. Sam and Dean. Dean and Sam. Dean could do this. Dean _would _do this. "We can stay, you know," Dean said, hedging a little. "For a day or two."

Sam cocked his head in question. "Why?"

Dean frowned a little. "Tie up some loose ends. Recuperate."

"You're the one with the stitches," Sam said with a slight smile.

"Yeah," Dean agreed, shifting at the thought. "I am. But, I don't know. She seems okay."

Sam seemed to consider that. "I don't really know her that well."

Of course he didn't. It had only been two weeks out of Sam's life. Two weeks when Dean wasn't there. That wasn't very much. But suddenly it just felt like too much. "I know why you've changed," Dean blurted suddenly.

Sam's face screwed up, a little confusion, a little hurt, a lot of denial.

Dean cleared his throat. "Under the siren's venom, I told you I didn't know when it happened. And maybe I didn't. But I think I do now. I mean, four months, forty years, it's a hell of a long time for both of us."

Sam looked uncomfortable. Painfully so. "Dean--"

"I'm not saying I'm cool with what you're doing. All the secrets. And you've got to get your head out of your ass when it comes to Ruby."

"Dean--"

"But it's not a mystery to me," he continued, pushing ahead because he had to. "Not that part. I didn't even make it three days, man. Thirty years in hell, no problem. Three days without my little brother and I cracked."

Sam looked stricken, and he dropped his head. "I don't like lying to you," he said, and his voice sounded strained.

Dean pulled himself together. "So, don't," he said. "I know it's been a little weird, but I'm still your brother."

Sam turned his eyes back to him and they looked red. "Sometimes, it's just hard," he said.

Rolling his eyes, Dean forced himself to keep his anger in check. "It shouldn't be," he said. "I know I've freaked out, but, man, Sam, I know what's out there. I know what hell is. And you can't go there. I would do anything to stop that. And, you know me, I don't deal with it well. Sometimes I throw punches instead of just telling you that I'm scared out of my mind."

Sam shook his head, short and tight. "No, not that," he said. "Sometimes it's hard to remember what it's like to be part of a team again. What it's like to have a brother. And it was so _damned hard_ doing it without you that sometimes it was just, I don't know. Easier to forget what it was like to have you around."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that," Dean said. And he was. "I just--can't be sorry you're still here."

Sam shook his head vehemently, and his eyes looked suspiciously wet. "Don't," he said.

"Don't what?"

Sam's face was deadly serious, as serious as Dean had ever seen it. "Don't sit there and apologize to me."

"Sam--"

Sam shook his head again, tighter this time. "You were in Hell, Dean," Sam said. "I know I can't really understand what that means right now, but what you did wasn't your fault. Getting off the rack, it doesn't make you weak. You couldn't help it. And, sometimes, it's hard for me to hear because every time I hear it, I just think about how I should have stopped it. How I should have saved you. And--" His voice cut off, emotion choking it. He swallowed hard. "And I made the choices I made to try to make up for it. I can't be sorry for that, but I am sorry for lying. And for hurting you. The siren--"

Dean waved his hand. "We both said some stupid things--"

"But you were right."

"And so were you," Dean replied, and it hurt to say. It hurt to admit, but he had to do it.

Sam looked down for a long moment, before looking back up. "Not about most of it."

"Yeah, well," Dean said, looking his little brother in his eyes. "Neither was I."

They were subtle, these apologies, but as deep as the revelations that fueled them. And for the first time in a long time, there was something like hope. There were still secrets and lies, there was still hurts and anguish, but they'd only needed one thing all along and that was the one thing they might find yet: each other.

Dean cleared his throat, shifting uncomfortably. The moment was good, but it was still emotion, and they were men and they were Winchesters and all those chick flick moments were sort of maxing out for the day. "So, uh, Bethany. She's kind of a character."

Sam sniffled a little, pulling in his own emotion faster than Dean thought he should be able to. "She's not a bad person."

"No," Dean agreed. "Still. As far as allies go, maybe one with a little less emotional baggage might be helpful."

Sam's posture shifted, pulled inward. Apologies were one thing. Opening up was apparently another. "Just...what did Bethany tell you?" Sam asked, his eyes narrowed and his position defensive. It shouldn't have to be like that. Dean wasn't the only one who was having trust issues.

"Not much," Dean said, shrugging as best he could. It took a lot not to pry, not to play the big brother card and make demands, but he'd tried that. He'd tried it and failed.

Sam's position was still stiff, and he was watching Dean, carefully and acutely, as if he was waiting for some kind of cue. And there was a chance there, a small opening, but an opening nonetheless.

Dean took a breath, offering a bit of a smile. It was still hard to think about, harder still to say. Yet, they had to start somewhere or they'd never find their way back to each other. "I don't know," he said, finally shrugging. He collected himself, looking his little brother squarely in the eye.

Sam looked awkward for a moment, like he wanted to hide his eyes, look away, but he didn't. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Dean said. "But I sort of wanted to hear it from you."

_end_


End file.
